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Education

Growing Well At School
Planting a successful school garden requires a lot more than just soil, seeds and water, say researchers who have come up with a planning tool that can help ensure school gardens thrive and endure.Intermediate

We Want To Learn
Iraqi girls are back at school in Mosul, Iraq after years of life under Islamic State. "We want to learn, we do not want to be ignorant," said one student.Intermediate

Teen Childbirth a Deterrent
Girls whose friends have experienced teen childbirth are less likely to get pregnant themselves, a new study suggests. (Teenage pregnancy, speed reading, should and sharing information.)Pre-Intermediate

The Ups and Downs of Child Stars
Everyone thinks their child is a superstar. But if that actually is true, then watch out. You have to start thinking about how to develop that talent and how to pay for it all. The "Harry Potter" are stars all grown up. Emma Watson said that for years she had no idea how much money she was earning and Radcliffe talks of the ups and downs of being a star. (Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, children's books, synonyms, word forms, choose the best answer.)Intermediate

Computer Women
New York City programmer Bana Malik was passionate about computers and mathematics from an early age. But early in her studies at New York's Columbia University, Malik took a computer science class and felt out of place in such a male-dominated environment - a common experience for women and minorities seeking work in an industry dominated by white men. (Computers and schools, women and computer education, minorities, structure: not only but also)Upper-Intermediate

Never Too Old To Graduate
This lesson is about graduating at 90 and an 85-year-old Argentine grandmother who got her degree in journalism. Maybe there is still time. (Old age, learning, retirement, education.)Elementary

Fancy Lunches
When it comes to kids' lunches, we've come a long way from PB&J, an apple and a cookie in a brown paper bag. Beau Coffron packs his daughter's school lunches in stainless steel containers that cost at least $20 a pop. He apportions all of her food into little compartments, making cartoon characters like animal shapes out of the ingredients. (Kids' lunches, consumer issues, food.)Upper-Intermediate

Nurses Save Money
A Massachusetts program that put full-time registered nurses in schools more than paid for itself by averting medical costs and lost work for parents and teachers. (School nurses, education, productivity, interviews, daily routines, frequency adverbs and the present simple.)Upper-Intermediate

Cost of the Prom
American girls are going to spend less money on the prom this year. Most prom dresses at David's, a store selling prom dresses, cost around $200. Many popular dresses cost $100.(Proms, shopping and beauty, charity organizations, planning a prom date, be going to.)Elementary

Testing The Littlest
A national push to make public schools more rigorous and hold teachers more accountable has led to a vast expansion of testing in kindergarten. And more exams are on the way, including a test meant to determine whether 5-year-olds are on track to succeed in college and career. (Exams for kids, summarizing, scanning, giving your opinion)
Advanced

Party Bribes
Sometime on Sunday morning, a Pennsylvania high school student will be presented with the keys to a black Honda Civic just for going to a party after the school's annual prom dance. Schools and civic organizations are using extravagant prizes to encourage high school students to attend supervised, alcohol-free events after their annual high school proms to keep them away from wild private parties. (Proms, teenage social behavior, pair crossword.)Upper-Intermediate

Giving Kids
Not long after the megastorm Sandy hit the northeast United States, Maryum Goodwin and her little girl Ryleigh, 6, saw a disturbing picture of the New Jersey shore devastation. "That's somebody's house?" Ryleigh asked. "It used to be," said Maryum. That moment got Ryleigh thinking about how she could help. (Teaching children about giving, charities, disasters, past perfect)Intermediate

Welcome Back
A sixth grade student with pink hair can now go back to school. The school told the girl to stay at home because of her pink hair, but now she can go back to school. (School uniforms, civil rights, hairstyles, using will to make future predictions, designing a school uniform).Elementary

Cyber School Bullies
Parents around the world say cyberbullying is a problem says a new survey and in the Netherlands some children bully other children online. 12% of Dutch young people said other children bully them online. (Bullying, cyberbullying, computer technology, schools, describing future plans, be going to..., discussion, asking for information game.)Elementary

Library Fines
The New York Public Library will waive the outstanding fines of up to 143,000 city children currently barred from borrowing new items on the condition they do one thing: read. Beginning on Monday, children enrolled in the library system's summer reading program will be able to knock $1 from their bill for every 15 minutes of reading they complete. (Libraries, debts, reading, describing a process, dialog and role play work.)Intermediate

India schoolgirl defies tradition
Her fate looked sealed when her family began organizing the nuptial celebrations. But the bride-to-be, a shy schoolgirl from a remote village in western India, wasn't ready to say "I do." In a region where patriarchy and age-old customs dictate a woman's life from birth to death, 15-year-old Sapna Meena in April joined a small but growing number of girls who are standing up against the widespread practice of child marriage in India. (Child marriage, education, marriage, India.)Advanced

Adding Chinese to ABCs
In Mandarin immersion teacher Kennis Wong's kindergarten class, her young pupils are making paper masks glued to sticks that they twirl between their palms, showing a different face on each side... The children at Broadway Elementary in Los Angeles are learning to talk in English and Chinese, and some are becoming trilingual due to a Spanish-speaking parent. (Language learning, immersion classes, study, present simple and will for habits and routines.)Upper-Intermediate

Computers Can Harm Kids
One in every 25 teens reported an "irresistible urge" to be on the Internet, tension when they weren't online, or said they had tried to quit or cut down on Internet time, according to a U.S. study. Teenagers who spend excessive amounts of time on the Internet are one and a half times more likely to develop depression than moderate web users. (Pros and cons of the Internet, teenagers, inventions, modal verbs, persuasive speeches.)Intermediate

Teacher's Critical Blog Private?
A high school English teacher who was suspended from her job after she blogged that her students were "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners," said that she did nothing wrong. "Some of the students, parents and administrators don't want to hear the truth," said the teacher 30, a teacher at a high school. (Free speech, teaching and students, adverb 'still'.)Intermediate

A Clamor for Education
Saudi teenager Abdulrahman Saeed lives in one of the richest countries in the world, but his prospects are poor, he blames his education, and it's not a situation that looks like changing soon. "There is not enough in our curriculum," says Saeed, 16, who goes to an all-male state school in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. "It is just theoretical teaching, and there is no practice or guidance to prepare us for the job market." (Education, Saudi Arabia.)Advanced

Lessons for Drunk Kids
The British Red Cross has launched a campaign to teach 11-16 year-olds how to handle medical emergencies which arise from excessive drinking. The Red Cross found 12 percent of 11-16 year olds have been left to cope with a drunken friend who was sick, injured or unconscious. (Teenage drinking, first aid, medical emergencies, Red Cross.)Upper-Intermediate

Goo Goo Ga Ga
The wail of a newborn may sound the same to the ears of sleep-deprived parents the world over, but according to scientists, that's not the case: Babies cry in the language their parents speak from the first days of life. (Babies, foetuses, human development, language degrees of certainty, could, might, definitely, likely.)Upper-Intermediate

DIY
Britain's recession is making people try new things from bee-keeping to growing vegetables. One of the fastest growing is DIY butchery. (Occupations, shops, present continuous tense, state verbs, vocabulary extension.)Intermediate

Under Attack
It may affect as many as half of U.S. teenagers, can be as bad or worse than being beaten up in the schoolyard, and is so relentless and emotionally devastating that suicide can seem the only answer. Whether it is through emails, instant messaging, cellphones, texting or web sites, cyberbullying is a growing problem. This lesson looks at cyberbullying and bullying. (Bullying, notetaking, Internet research, comprehension.)Upper-Intermediate

Computer Whiz Kid
He's made headlines for his computer programing skills, but nine-year-old Singaporean Lim Ding Wen is only allowed to play with his desktop for just two hours a day, and provided he's finished his homework. (Computers, children and computers, ambitions, choose the best summary, complete a table, present perfect simple and past simple.)Intermediate

School For All
In a country where an education is often out of reach for thousands of impoverished children, the Kartini Emergency School in Indonesia is proving to be an exception. Amid the poverty and grime, 59-year-old twin sisters Sri Rossyati and Sri Irianingsih have opened the free school where their 550 students receive not only an education, but meals, a uniform, shoes, pencils and books. (Poverty, education, used to for habits.)Upper-Intermediate

Homework For Sale
"You can't do it? We're here to help," says the homepage of a new website. The website allowed children the chance to buy answers ranging from solutions to simple maths problems to a full end-of-year presentation complete with slides and speaking notes.Pre-Intermediate

"American Dream"
Kim Bischof is entering the U.S. job market after she finishes college in May with a degree in special education and is confident that the "American Dream' is still alive for her, recession be dammed. Her optimism, echoed by other students in interviews, may reflect the fact that many young Americans today are indeed better off than their parents were at the same age. (American dream, reality of life for young Americans compared to parents, summarizing, verb forms.)Advanced

No cake
Children in a New Zealand school must not bring birthday cakes to school because of rules for healthy eating. (Diet, children, birthdays, true or false questions, giving an opinion.)Elementary

Preserving Tongues
No one speaks a word of English. "I just use Cayuga with them," Jacobs said. "Mostly they can respond back in Cayuga, so it's pretty cool." The eight children of this kindergarten class carry on their shoulders the hopes for preserving the language of the Cayugas. (Languages, language learning policy and funding, attitude to language learning, indigenous peoples, giving an opinion, choosing the best answer, grammatical error correction.)Advanced

Copy Cat College Students
More than half of teachers in a British survey said they thought plagiarism from the Internet is a problem.(College students and lecturers, making excuses, comprehension, true, false and not given, role play, writing a letter to excuse yourself, prepositions.)Upper-Intermediate

Bilingual Pre-schoolers
Preschoolers who speak Spanish as their first language at home are losing their native tongue while also struggling to speak English, according to American researchers.(Language learning, bilingualism, choosing the best answer, sentence extracts, true, false or not given, word find puzzle.)Intermediate

Hot Chopsticks
A high school in Japan is going to have a chopstick test in its entrance exams. The test will take ten minutes and students will use chopsticks to move things like marbles and dice from one plate to another. (Discussion, be going to, completing a summary, reading for meaning, brainstorming.)Elementary

Education in Crisis
Ahmed waits outside his school's gates on a chilly midweek morning, holding his textbooks by his side. But as the majority of pupils and teachers fail to arrive, the 18-year-old, who is in his final year at high school, has to put off learning for yet another day. "It's canceled again today," he said. (Education in an area of conflict, Iraq, brainstorming vocabulary, checking predictions, completing a sentence summary, inferring, discussion, describing qualities.)Advanced

Wiggly Entertainment
Greg Page, the yellow Wiggle, has announced that he will retire from the Wiggles because of illness. Australia's top-selling children's phenomenon, a hyperactive band of preschool teachers, and a giggling dinosaur, has been extremely successful but now the group will be changing. (Children's entertainment, creating an image, brainstorming)Intermediate

Battling the Ban
New York may be a city of incessant cell phone talkers, but students vowed on Wednesday they would hit the "off" button during classes as they battled a ban on cell phones in schools. (Using cell phones, high schools, true or false, brainstorming, completing a table of information, discussing pros and cons, using present simple, present continuous and will/won't to describe present habits.)Upper-Intermediate

Ethical Education
An Indian teenager fooled governments, the media and even the president into believing he had topped the world in a NASA science exam. Canadian university students cheated on an ethics course. (Dishonesty, plagiarizing, examinations, understanding the main idea, answering true, false or not given questions, describing past habits and routines, writing a questionnaire.)Upper-Intermediate

Talking Digitoys
Toys are changing fast, not least because their vocabulary is increasing, fast! New toys have computing power that makes them completely different to toys of even 10 years ago. There's even a doll that can read! (Toys, computer chips, children's development, scanning, writing definitions, identifying viewpoints, summarizing, discussion.)Advanced

A Micro $4 Billion
Muhammad Yunus, 63, is the founder of Grameen Bank, which has made more than $4 billion in tiny loans to poor Bangladeshis, providing a lifeline for millions and a banking model that has been copied in more than 100 nations from the United States to Uganda. (Microfinance, microcredit, Bangladesh, problem solving, reading and predicting, general knowledge, comprehension, multiple choice, jigsaw reading, identifying present and past tenses, pair crossword.)Intermediate

Truant Text Warning!
This is about how children at a Singapore school need to think twice about playing truant: The school has set up a mobile phone text message broadcast system which automatically alerts their parents!Intermediate

Changing Careers
Boardroom lunches and presentations to high-flying British executives were routine for Martin during his 15 years as a management consultant. Now his lunch break is spent supervising school dinners and he gives presentations to his hardest audience yet -- geography students at a London school. (Teaching vs business as a career, job satisfaction, interview - attitudes to work, writing questions, complete a table, making comparisons between things that are not equal or the same, peer dictation.)Upper-Intermediate

Breakfast Study
A new study suggests young adults may be less attentive in school when they skip breakfast. (Nutrition, importance of breakfast, nutritional needs of boys and girls, survey, understanding the main idea, matching sentence beginnings and endings, multiple choice questions, pairwork - talking about meals and performance in tests, sharing information game, frequency adverbs, countable and uncountable nouns and expressons of quantity.)Pre-Intermediate

Student Wins Geography Prize
A 14-year-old who is taught at home by his mother beat 54 other students to win the title of U.S. National Geographic Bee champion and a prize worth $25,000. (Geography, competitions, homeschooling, sequencing, thinking carefully, describing and comparing two pictures game, word find puzzle.)Pre-Intermediate

Chinese Students Return Home
China began letting more of its students out into the world in the late 1970s. But it is only recently that foreign-trained Chinese have begun to return, lured by a booming economy and more opportunities in the growing number of private companies and foreign firms that now have offices in China. (China, students, employment, scanning, comprehension, gap fill, true, false or not given, the suffix 'ee', role play, essay topic.)Advanced

Peace Training Grounds
McCarthy loves the long-shot. Good thing, too, because the journalist-turned-peace activist is betting that warlike humanity will some day evolve into enlightened creatures guided by love and harmony. (Peace studies, finding the main idea, true, false or not given, missing sentences, sharing information, gap fill, suffixes, finding grammatical errors, essay.)Advanced

No excuses!
"The dog ate my homework." If students at a Houston middle school say this to their teachers, their parents may be asked to go to court. (Schools, parents and students, understanding the main idea, multiple choice, matching information, true or false, discussion, making excuses, crossword.)Elementary

Lawyers Want Government Jobs
Today, the Enron and WorldCom stories have transformed corporate crime fighting into a top choice for law students who, only two years ago, might have looked down their noses at a career in government. (Legal graduates and government law, listening comprehension, discussing pros and cons, true, false or not given, comprehension, completing statements, verbs that take the infinitive, role play.)Advanced

Too Much TV Bad For Kids?
Kids who spend more time watching TV--regardless of the content of the programming--are more likely to behave aggressively and have other types of social problems, a study has found. (Television watching and children, True, False or Not Given, writing questions, main idea, past simple, role-play, crossword.)Upper-Intermediate

No More Recorders!
The humble recorder, played by generations of schoolchildren, has received an unwelcome blow when researchers revealed the average child hates it. (The recorder and other musical instruments, musical preferences, finding the main idea, synonyms, writing questions, expository essays, role play--making excuses, finding grammatical mistakes.)
Intermediate

School Bullies Targeted
The largest U.S. doctors group has taken a stand against school bullies, urging a far-flung effort to change attitudes and asking colleagues to talk to younger patients who may be suffering in silence. (Bullying, predicting, scanning, true, false or not given, 'weak' and 'strong' adjectives.)Intermediate